At the age of 62, the Orpington housewife whose husband Chris languishes in a US jail, has lost her lifelong faith in the British state

Elaine Tappin lives in a handsome house on a private estate in Orpington,
Kent. There is a Mercedes in the drive and an Audi in the garage. Tall and
trim, she receives me in a living room where French windows lead out to a
swimming pool.

Her home is the embodiment of affluent, suburban, middle-class England — a
place where life is safe and orderly and horrible things don’t happen.
Except that in Mrs Tappin’s case they have. She has been hit by a calamity
of a sort that occurs only in Kafka’s novels, or so she thought. She and her